Greece seeks 3-year aid program, rushes to detail reforms
Greece seeks 3-year aid program, rushes to detail reforms
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece requested a new three-year rescue program from its European partners Wednesday and rushed to complete a detailed plan of economic reforms in time to avoid the country’s descent into financial chaos.
With the banking system teetering on the edge of collapse, the government sought to reassure its European creditors it would enact tax and pension reforms quickly in exchange for loans from Europe’s bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism.
After months of fruitless negotiations with the Greek government, the skeptical European creditor states said they want to see a detailed, cost-accounted plan of the reforms by today. That is meant to give the creditors enough time to review the plan before leaders of the European Union’s 28 countries meet Sunday in what has been termed as Greece’s last chance to stay in the euro.
Medicare to pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling
WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicare said Wednesday it plans to pay doctors to counsel patients about end-of-life care, the same idea that sparked accusations of “death panels” and fanned a political furor about President Barack Obama’s health care law six years ago.
The policy change, to take effect Jan. 1, was tucked into a massive regulation on payments for doctors. Counseling would be entirely voluntary for patients.
Some doctors already have such conversations with their patients without billing extra. Certain private insurers have begun offering reimbursement. But an opening to roughly 55 million Medicare beneficiaries could make such talks far more common.
Baltimore police commissioner fired
BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake fired the troubled city’s police commissioner Wednesday, saying a recent spike in homicides weeks after an unarmed black man died of injuries in police custody required a change in leadership.
Rawlings-Blake thanked Police Commissioner Anthony Batts for his service — and praised the job he had done — but said growing criticism of his leadership had become a “distraction” preventing the city from moving ahead.
Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, who has been with the department just since January, will serve as interim commissioner, Rawlings-Blake said.
The firing comes 2 1/2 months after the city broke out into riots following the death of Freddie Gray, who died in April of injuries he received in police custody. Six police officers have been criminally charged in Gray’s death.
Calif. becomes second state where Latinos outnumber whites
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The long-expected moment when Latinos surpassed whites as California’s largest racial or ethnic group has come and gone.
Hispanic Californians began to narrowly outnumber white Californians sometime in the first half of 2014, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released in late June.
The state had some 14.99 million Latinos compared with about 14.92 million non-Hispanic whites as of July 1, 2014, the most recent data available. Together, the two groups make up nearly 80 percent of the state’s population.
Demographers had expected the shift for decades as the state’s Hispanic population boomed due to immigration and birth rates.
Many thought it would happen sooner than it did — the California Department of Finance had predicted 2013 — but a slight decline in population pushed it to last year.